5 Reasons Why Jan Koum Is Living the American Dream

The American Dream is still a thing and Jan Koum is living it.

Remember the American Dream? The thing that we get told about but lose faith in once we realize how things work in this country? Well it still can be found if you look hard enough. And if you're too lazy or too cynical to look for it, look in the tech news and the man dominating it—Jan Koum. Koum, the co-founder of WhatsApp, is set for life after selling the app to Facebook for $19 billion. How he got to the position to sell the app for that sum is an extraordinary testament to not only the American Dream but a testament in doing what it takes to make that dream come true.

Here's five reasons Koum's story is a testamonial to the American Dream.

1. He Came to America Sincerely Looking for a Better Life

When Koum was 16, he and his mother left Ukraine and the turbulent climate created by the fall of the Soviet Union for Mountain View, California, the home of Google. With the help of the government, the pair found small jobs and a small apartment to start their lives in America. Koum worked at a grocery store and lived off of his mother's disability when she was diagonsed with cancer. His father died in Ukraine a year after he arrived in the US. Four years after arriving in the US, his mother died as well. Koum was 24, alone and had dropped out of school for a job with Yahoo!.

2. He Wasn't Satisfied

Complacency can be justified given the right circumstances. For example, if your first job was a well-paying one, especially if you got it less than a decade since arriving in the country, even if the job isn't getting to be as much fun as it was when you started, you can still accept the paycheck since you know how much worse it could have been. Koum did not follow that line of reasoning. He left Yahoo! in 2007, tired of the mundane life of creating digital ads. He took a year and traveled with friend and co-founder Brian Acton before looking for something new in life.

3. He Overcame Rejection

Rejection happens to everyone, regardless of their backstory. When Koum and Acton returned from their year abroad, they each applied to Facebook in September 2007. They were each rejected. Koum was jobless and beginning to lose his savings. In January 2009, he used a small portion of those savings to buy an iPhone and saw an idea for a new app in the then-nascent App Store. He got to work immediately, meeting with friends and coders to discuss his idea for an app that would allow users to see status updates next to the names that appeared in the address books of their phones. On his 33rd birthday, February 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp. Four months later, he was able to incorporate Apple's new push notifications and a messaging service into a software update and WhatsApp took off. At the time of its sale, WhatsApp had about 200 million users.

4. He Remembered Where He Came From

When the time came for Koum to sell WhatsApp, he decided to sign the contract at the same building he used to stand and wait for food stamps when he was a young man many years ago. Think of the poetic justice in this scene. A man who once stood outside the building looking for food stamps is now standing outside the same building signing papers that will make him a billionaire. The man who relied on that building for survival, leaned on it one last time to dot the I that will allow him to never worry about another meal again.

5. He Gave Back

Koum and Acton looked for help from their close circle on WhatsApp during its early stages. Not only did they help contribute to the app's development and improvement as a product, they also bought some stock into the company. As part of the terms of the deal with Facebook, early employees of WhatsApp are entitled to a 1% portion of the $16 billion deal or, $160 million. Koum is not the only one who will be set for life with this deal, the people who worked with him for the longest and hardest times, are also set. Not coincidentally, some of them are his friends.

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